Head Over To LiveJournal!

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V for...Vacuous

The film V for Vendetta, based on the graphic novel of the same name, opened last weekend and was the number one movie in America. Rather than write a full scale review, I'll direct readers to a lengthy and insightful review in "The New Yorker" and a shorter but equally insightful review in "Entertainment Weekly." While I don't agree with everything in the reviews, I think they are correct in essence. In trying to write my own full review, I found myself echoing these reviews so much that I decided it was better to direct readers to them and add my own thoughts.

1.) Conservatives and right-wingers of various stripes have denounced the film as an attack on Bush, and it certainly is that. The author of the graphic novel, Alan Moore, once described Ayn Rand as some kind of "white supremacist," and has also described the (mild, in my opinion) free-market reforms of Reagan and Thatcher as the "friendly face of fascism." A self-proclaimed anarchist, Moore has disowned the film because, among other reasons, it implies that our choices are, in his words, "current American neo-conservatism [or] current American liberalism." In Moore's mind, the real choice is between anarchism and fascism. While Moore may disagree, both The Matrix and V for Vendetta angrily cry out for "freedom" and against "control" in ways that should warm every anarchist's heart.

2.) I'd like to contrast V for Vendetta with a show that has been described as "anarchic," South Park. South Park's attacks on American culture are attacks made by people who love America. See Team America: World Police if you don't believe me or read this for their view of Bush. Suffice it to say that they don't seem to think he's a fascist. Sure, many Americans are belligerent people with wacky religious ideas who are ignorant of the rest of the world, but ultimately, Americans end up on the side of truth, justice, and...well...the American Way! The politics of South Park are much like those of H.L. Mencken. Though he was overwhelmingly negative and cynical, I think Mencken loved liberty, not anarchy--a distinction which makes all the difference in the world. (Readers may be surprised to know that, early in her career, Ayn Rand considered him "the greatest representative of a philosophy to which I want to dedicate my whole life." (Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 13). Though I am not aware of any evidence that she did, it is possible that she changed her view of Mencken later in life.) The politics of V for Vendetta are much like those of Noam Chomsky. Enough said.

Dennett Again

Here's my last word on "intelligent design" and its opponents--who are, in many cases, no better than the creationists--for the time being.

"Intelligent design" is a form of creationism. It is "creationism in camouflage," to quote this excellent op-ed by Dr. Keith Lockitch. Rational people should not take it seriously, except as a fundamental error needing refutation on a fundamental level, refutation which Dr. Lockitch, among others, has provided. But a further refutation now, unfortunately, needs to be done. That refutation is of those who style themselves men of science, but whose philosophical ignorance, errors, or evasions have linked the pro-science cause in the public mind with irrationalism and left-wing politics.

Judging by all I've read about him, Dennett's argument, instead of presuming that religious explanations are not explanations at all, attempts to refute religious explanations by offering scientific ones as an alternative and suggesting reasons why people may have been deluded in the past into believing the religious myth instead of the scientific truth. "See," he is, in essence, saying, "we don't need God to explain this or this or this, etc." The simple fact is that religious explanations are a matter of faith. So that's the place to start--is faith a valid method for understanding anything? And the answer is: no. One can talk all one wants to about the reasons people believe in the supernatural, but ultimately anything "beyond," "above," or "outside" the natural world is simply a matter of faith, and no more need be said about than that it is not based on reality.

The first step to "breaking the spell" of religion is letting people know that faith is not a valid method of gaining knowledge about the world. If they disagree, one can argue with them all day, but it will make no difference, for "To those who understand, no explanation is necessary. To those who do not, none will suffice." (In either case, no explanation can be made.) When people agree that faith is not a valid way of gaining knowledge about the world, they can then go on to discuss possible explanations for the nature of the world and muse about the reasons people persist in accepting superstitious notions and the consequences of said acceptance. But if they don't, no amount of refutation of religious myths will make a difference, nor will any questionable discipline such as "evolutionary psychology" eradicate faith by demonstrating that it's primitive in origin. Instead, it will likely convince people that scientists and philosophers are offering an alternative faith (i.e. irrational belief) of their own.

Along with the unnecessary "refutations" of that for which there is no evidence, Dennett and company suggest that a scientific view of the world naturally and logically suggests a leftist cultural/political program. Their references to the evil of the religious right--and I agree that the religious right is a force for evil in America--often refer to its opposition to environmentalism, animal rights, pacifism. What do these add up to? Namely the ethical/political worldview of the Western left. I suspect that the religious right's religion angers these people less (even if only very slightly less) than their opposition to leftist politics.

I suspect the religious right's persecution complex--see the "war on Christmas," the pledge of allegiance controversy, the Ten Commandments controversy--stems from the fact that the left, of which Dennett is certainly a part, really is out to shut these people out of politics. I'm not so sure this desire is due so much to their religion as it is to which side of the political argument they've thrown in with--namely the right. It makes people think: maybe the Darwinists aren't scientists, but moral/political operatives (like the environmentalists) out to force us to be godless communists! Of course, nothing in Darwin's writings could honestly be construed to justify such a conclusion, but you wouldn't know it from listening to Dennett.

Here's the most recent interview with Dennett that I've read. It seems to confirm everything I've been saying. It will be a disaster if science in this country is displaced by creationist nonsense because of the faulty worldview of Daniel Dennett et. al.

First Dawkins, now Dennett

While I find the religious worldview shared by Joseph Bottum, Stephen Barr, and others at the religious journal First Things rationally indefensible, I find the worldview of Richard Dawkins equally indefensible, if not moreso. Another widely-known intellectual who, in broad terms, agrees with Richard Dawkins is Daniel Dennett. See here and here for details about Dennett's attitude toward religion. I share Dennett's attitude in one sense: I think religion is nonsense. But the similarity pretty much ends there.

Dawkins and Dennett seem to believe that science somehow "disproves" religion. This is incorrect. Science presupposes that supernatural explanations explain nothing. It presupposes a basic view of existence in which "God did it" or "a miracle occurs" is another way of saying "I don't know why something happened, but it is so impressive that the usual tools of the scientist, such as observation, testing, deduction, and the like will all be insufficient to discover the cause." This, of course, is no explanation at all. It is a call for faith. The first questions a scientist would have to ask upon hearing this "explanation" would be: "Who is this 'God' fellow of which you speak? What is His nature? How can I get in contact with Him?" But true scientists will not spend any time contemplating such questions, since no answers to them can possibly exist. That's the whole thing about God: He's supernatural, above and beyond everything we see in the world and everything we know about the world, and as such there can't be any evidence of His existence--it's ultimately a matter of faith, not of reason.

When one tries to "disprove" something for which no evidence can ever be found (i.e., in this case, the non-existence of God), he gives his adversary (i.e., in this case, the religious person opposed to evolution) an opening to multiply arbitrary arguments ad infinitum. If the atheist, in addition to trying to prove God's non-existence, opposes the "speciesist" idea that human beings are more valuable than non-human animals, don't be surprised when a significant fraction of people decide that "God did it" may be as good an explanation for the origin of man as--if not a better one than--evolution by natural selection.

Richard Dawkins: Darwinian and anti-Darwinian

I am an inveterate foe of irrationality. As such, I think the "intelligent design" crowd is completely bonkers. Here's to the Pastafarians!

That said, if you're looking for opposition to creationist pseudo-science in the classroom, you would do well to avoid the well-known anti-religionist Richard Dawkins like the plague. Qua biologist, I have no quarrel with Dawkins. Philosophically, however, the man is a disaster. Here are two choice quotes from a recent Washington Post piece about the "intelligent design" controversy:

And evolutionary science has a great deal to say about ethics and morality, Dawkins said. Being "pro-life in debates on abortion or stem cell research always means pro-human life, for no sensibly articulated reason," he once wrote. The fact that humans think of themselves as altogether distinct from other animals--and the biblical notion that humans have dominion over other animals--is a sort of racism, Dawkins said. Evolution shows that fox hunters and bullfighters are tormenting their own distant cousins, which is why the biologist sends money to anti-bullfighting groups in Spain, and why he notes with pride that fox hunting was banned on the family farm. "The melancholy fact," Dawkins wrote in an essay called "Gaps in the Mind," "is that, at present, society's moral attitudes rest almost entirely on the . . . speciesist imperative."

and

"I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to explaining how things are, but I am an even more passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics," said Dawkins, who comes close to describing himself as a pacifist. "Let us understand Darwinism so we can walk in the opposite direction when it comes to setting up society."

The whole thing is here. In case you want to save time, this supposed foe of irrationality's view of humanity can be summed up in two sentences:

Our possession of reason to the contrary notwithstanding, we're cousins of bulls and foxes and to think we're somehow "better" than them is to be speciesist. Evolution tells us the facts of human nature, but our society should be structured in direct opposition to those facts.

If this is the best that opponents of religion can come up with, "intelligent design" is the least of our problems.

My First Post!

On this, my 26th birthday, I finally enter the blogosphere. It's long overdue.

A few preliminary matters:

Why "all the rest follows," you may ask? It comes from something Ayn Rand wrote in September of 1971 in the last issue of her periodical The Objectivist. She wrote:

"In summing up this publication's record, I shall say that I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."

I agree wholeheartedly. As for me, I'm just starting this blog. Quite literally, therefore, all the rest follows.

I make no guarantees with regard to posting frequency, when and whether I'll leave blogger and get my own URL, when and whether I'll add a podcast, when and whether I'll try to make money through ads, or anything else. Only time will tell how this thing will evolve.

What do I hope to achieve with this venture? Well, to begin with, I want a place to record my thoughts and to share them with anyone who might be interested in them. Because my views are, in some respects, contrary to the conventional wisdom, I can't say I will consider this thing a failure if I fail to gain a large audience over time. Even with an audience of zero, which is what I'll be starting out with, I will have a record of my thoughts, and so I hope to keep the thing going in some form, regardless of how big or small a venture it may be, for a long, long time. I expect I will say little to nothing about my personal life and more about politics, business, economics, books, movies, music, and sports.

My main focus will be on the issue of our time: the West's struggle to defend itself against its enemies, foreign--from the Islamofascists of Iran to the Communists of North Korea--and domestic--from the anti-American left to the anti-American "right." These are very serious matters. The danger is real. And the enemies of America--and of civilization itself--must be defeated. That said, the enemies of America are ultimately powerless. In the long run, if we do not lose our will, they cannot possibly defeat us. And that's why I think it's important to have a chuckle at the expense of these people. For those of you who haven't heard "It's in the Koran," by the pseudonymous "Patrick Henry," take a listen.

That's all for now. Welcome to my blog. All the rest follows...